Guild Boss's Ambition

If people have attachments, they will gradually lose the motivation to take risks, but similarly, if people have no attachments, there is no need to take risks at all. The so-called progress is that we and the world are pulling each other. If there is no bond, no cause and effect, no fate, then there is no so-called adventure, and no cherished memories.

I should have been enjoying a whole night of warmth with Lian'er, but an unexpected visitor knocked on my door.

That was the winged man Sora, she came to me with a pair of confused eyes.

Maybe it's because Miss Raftan happened to be out on a mission, so she had no choice but to come to me to talk?

She stammered, "Well, Miss Lannong, is it convenient for us to talk now?"

"Business matters? Private matters?"

"Um... half and half?"

Just by looking at her expression, I could roughly guess what she was thinking.

I've had this feeling of loss before.

"If you don't mind my sister being here, come in and sit down?"

"Well, thank you."

As soon as she saw a stranger coming, Lian'er went to make tea and coffee. I watched the little girl's progress silently, smiling in my heart, and greeted Sola, arranged for her to sit down, and then asked Sola on behalf of Lian'er who was hesitating in the kitchen: "Well, Sola, do you prefer black tea or coffee?"

However, even though I tried my best to signal with my eyes, Sola, who was not good at reading people's expressions, still couldn't understand my expression.

She gave an answer that wasn't in the fridge: "I'm a coke person."

Lian'er, who was boiling water, visibly trembled her shoulders.

I had to ask more bluntly: "Sorry, we don't have Coke here. Would you like tea or coffee?"

"Don't bother. I'm not thirsty."

Miss Sora, do you know?

You have just directly and indirectly denied the value of my Lian'er's existence.

However, my Lian'er is a strong girl. Even when she met a bad guest like Miss Sola, she still did not give up the task of pouring tea and water. She quietly rushed out the door and came back to us with a glass bottle of Coke, and then put it and my coffee together on the tray and served them to us.

As a result, when Miss Sora saw Coke, she also realized something was wrong.

The winged girl asked innocently, "Didn't they say there's no Coke in the fridge?"

I smiled appreciatively at Lian'er and helped her explain to Sora, "Lian'er must have asked Miss Blanny next door for it. Lian'er loves Coke just like you. In order to prevent her from drinking too much sugar, I would hide the Coke at Blanny's place. But I didn't expect that she had already discovered the treasure hiding place a long time ago!"

At the end of the conversation, my tone couldn't help but turn cold.

At this moment, Lian'er forced out the expression of a certain president's daughter and looked away with an innocent look.

"Meng'er-Ahad! You failed adult! It's you who taught our Lian'er bad things!"

Because there were guests present, I couldn't put on a show of teaching my son. I just glared at the gray-haired girl, then smiled and used a word of praise to elicit Sora's purpose: "By the way, if nothing unexpected happens, our mission this time should be over like this, right? Miss Sora, in my opinion, your performance this time is quite good!"

"Will it? I obviously didn't help at all..."

Here we go again!

Even though she has successfully solved many problems for Mr. Green Willow, Miss Sora still hasn't gained the confidence she should have on this journey. Part of her lack of confidence probably stems from the discrimination and exclusion she suffered as a child. It would be unreasonable for her to completely change just because of one or two successes.

Although the effect may not be very good, I still want to try to comfort her with words.

After all, as appraisers, one of our tasks is to make the adventurers we are responsible for become better.

As for Sora, words of comfort might be of no use.

Even if we affirm people who are chronically lacking in self-confidence in person, they will most likely just take it as well-intentioned consolation.

On the other hand, criticism that hits the nail on the head may be more likely to be effective.

I thought about it for a moment, then said with a smile, "Ms. Sora, it turns out you also have a bad temper."

"Eh?"

She made a surprised sound.

I added milk to the coffee in front of me and said with a faint smile, "Because Miss Sora, you always look down on others!"

"Miss Lannong...?"

Miss Sora didn't seem to expect me to say such a thing, and even Lian'er gave me a puzzled look.

I secretly gave myself a 90 for my excellent acting skills.

In fact, pretending to be cool is really easy. All you have to do is imitate a necromancer.

I maintained Bai Ye's nonchalance, took a sip of coffee, and said in a slightly cold tone: "Miss Sora, don't you feel that you look down on others? Think about it, how did you treat Mr. Green Willow at that time? Why didn't you inform him in advance when dealing with the oil painting? Didn't you think so at that time──"

I paused, and pulled my smile into a strange arc: "Miss Lan Nong and the others will definitely not understand, right?"

"I……"

Miss Sora wants to defend herself, but how can I let her do so?

Ha ha……

I chuckled and looked into her wavering eyes. "Not only that, you also look down on your own people. You often despise them for having two wings but only being able to fly to that extent. You also think that the adventurers of the same batch are all making stupid mistakes, so you don't want to associate with them. Compared to the weak, you need the strong to set off yourself."

"It's only natural that the weak can't do things as perfectly as the strong. That's what you think, right? The reason you can stay with Raftan is because she is so strong that you can't compare with her. Since Raftan is already a perfect example in your mind, her excellence will not highlight your weakness."

I kept talking to myself, and my words were all very hurtful, but I firmly believe in my level of judging people. Miss Sora is the kind of person I was talking about. Perhaps people with low self-esteem have a fierce poison called "comparison" in their hearts, which poisons both themselves and themselves. It is an escape strategy that the human heart automatically adopts to avoid too much pain.

I used to avoid it in the past, and the language barrier bothered me for a long time in my childhood.

……

……

27. The gaze of an inferior person (Xiao Lan)

(Uru-Lannon)

The gaze of those with low self-esteem is arrogant, and Sora also has such a gaze.

Maybe Sora has never been aware of it, but she has actually been silently evaluating everything in front of her.

Of course, it's not just her, each of us actually judges others.

But in addition to her evaluation, Sora also adopted a coping strategy that was both smart and clumsy. On the one hand, she was unwilling to associate with the weak, and on the other hand, she admired but dared not approach the strong. Only when she met superiors like me and Raftan who took the initiative to approach her, would she feel at ease to leave her comfort zone, explore the outside world a little, and try things that she is not familiar with.

"Are you angry if I criticize you like this?" I asked in a joking tone.

"I...I don't know." She replied with a frown.

I can guarantee with a week's worth of red bean buns that Sora must be angry now. However, she didn't want to admit that she would be annoyed by my criticism. This winged woman was proud and didn't want a twelve or thirteen-year-old girl to see through her thoughts and understand her.

However, while she didn't want to be understood by me, she longed to be understood by others.

This complex idea is very contradictory, but the mentality of people with inferiority complex is often so contradictory.

If there were no such intricate contradictions, worries would not become worries, and people’s minds would not be trapped in a maze, always in an endless cycle of reincarnation.

Looking at Sora who was still the same, I continued cautiously but boldly: "Honestly speaking, based on my observations along the way, Sora, you not only look down on others, but also seem to be very self-centered. From the beginning to now, don't you feel that you have always wanted to snatch all the work from others? Do you want to prove that you are better than others?"

"Wow! Sora, you are amazing!" I said sarcastically, "Is this what you want to hear?"

"nonsense!"

Miss Sora shouted excitedly, and the sudden burst of voice frightened Lian'er so much that her body trembled.

Although it might backfire, I still decided to be cruel and become a character that others hate, like Bai Ye and Hai Lao: "Ms. Sora, you must always be fantasizing, right? You fantasize about being strong enough to defeat the enemies on the mission, you fantasize about being loved by your relatives and friends, you fantasize about your beauty that can capture anyone's heart, you fantasize about being perfect!"

"Then you gradually realize that you are not perfect in reality."

"You judge yourself while judging others, and you begin to feel that you are really ridiculous—"

"Yes! Just like now, you want to refute me, right? You are angry that you can't refute me, right? Your ideal self must be able to refute the self-righteous me beautifully and handsomely, right? But unfortunately, fantasy is simple, but reality is difficult. You can only fulfill your fantasy in one or two areas. As for other aspects? Haha."

At this point, Miss Sola had already stared at me with uncontrollable anger, as if she wanted to burn two big holes in my face with her eyes, but how could she, with her inferiority complex, have the courage to argue? She would retreat, she was used to retreating, used to curling up in that safe comfort zone and feeling sorry for herself. There was no other way, this was her usual way of survival.

Rustle.

She suddenly stood up and bowed to me.

The moment she turned around, I seized the opportunity to ask, "Are you going to escape again?"

"Ms. Sora, do you have the courage to face me?"

I looked at Miss Sora's back with trepidation and anticipation.

Thank God, she didn't run away. She armed herself, put on a tough expression, and looked back at me: "Escape? What do I need to escape from? On the contrary, Miss Lannong, you have been talking to yourself. Did you misunderstand something?"

very good.

If the hero doesn't have the courage to fight, then there is no value in my existence as a villain demon king.

I recalled Bai Ye's tone and asked, "Ms. Sora, do you think I was wrong? Do you really not look down on others? Then why did you decline so many invitations to join a team in the past?"

“I’m more efficient on my own.”

"fraud."

With a burst of strange laughter, I coldly scolded the winged man in front of me: "It has nothing to do with efficiency. You declined to cooperate with those people just because you wanted to keep yourself out of trouble! Who would accept the invitation of these marginal people? If others see you hanging out with these people, I will definitely be mistaken for the same weirdo, right? Right! Is that what you think?"

"No! I just... I just..."

Miss Sora was anxious but unable to answer because she also realized that she was the kind of person with a bad temper that I mentioned.

The longer I live, the more I feel that we humans are all born bad-tempered fools.

And precisely because we are all born bad-tempered fools, I don’t hate those bad-tempered friends.

My duty is to make Miss Sora a better adventurer, so I must make her face herself. Even if the following approach may hurt her, it is necessary to try and be ruthless: "You, who do you think you are? If everyone only makes friends with people who are better than themselves, then what qualifications do you have to ask Raftan and others to be friendly to you?"

"When you easily reject others, do you know how determined they are when they take the initiative to contact you?"

"Of course, everyone has the power and freedom to choose their friends, but we are not oranges in the market, you can't pick and choose. To put it bluntly, not everyone is idle enough to care about your inner feelings, and what you have been doing so far is quite arrogant in our eyes──"

My voice stopped there, and Miss Sora fell into a strolling silence. Lian'er silently watched everything in front of her, and her eyes were full of thoughts. After a long while, Miss Sora, whose face turned red and white with anger, finally responded. She took out the notebook in her arms and began to change the subject: "Miss Lannong, I'm here to discuss the missing case with you."

what……

Looking at her jumping reaction, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

I had to try to maintain a cool expression and asked like a teacher, "Did you listen to what I just told you?"

She didn't look at me, just at her notes, and stammered, "Yeah."

"What do you mean? It feels like a child throwing a tantrum after being lectured by an adult?"

"If you keep nagging her, she'll probably get angry and run away, right?"

"Ms. Sora seems to have an unexpectedly childish temper—"

"A little naughty and cute?"

“No, no, no…”

I glanced at Lian'er, who was so bored that she turned around and slipped onto the bed to read a fairy tale book.

It was a vague and unconscious half-exposed posture.

The innocent girl lazily put her feet on the wall, and her short shirt slid down with the gravity, exposing her milky white belly completely to the air. Regrettably, the fallen clothes were pressed down by the weight of the fairy tale book to the bottom of her chest, so that the most exciting part that was about to follow could not be seen.

Lian'er in our family is as fresh and sweet as a red apple without any pesticides. Even if there are unfamiliar guests visiting her, she will remain the same and do what she wants to do without any scruples. Although objectively speaking, it is a bit impolite, but if you think about it more deeply, isn't this just a manifestation of the girl's straightforwardness and naturalness?

"As expected, the cutest one is our Lian'er!"

"If there are toads who want to eat swan meat, then let Bai Ye deal with them all, right?"

"Lian'er is mine! I won't let anyone else get her! I won't let her get married!"

Because of Lian'er, a thousand thoughts flashed through my mind in an instant, but as an excellent poster girl, I was of course able to do two things at the same time, combining my imagination with the current situation.

Under Miss Sora's focused gaze, I coughed lightly, pretending not to be able to guess her intention, and asked, "Specifically, do you have any other questions about this missing case?"

Miss Sola asked hesitantly, "Can I go to the monastery to continue searching for evidence?"

I knew it was this problem!

For Sora, every commissioned mission is her game. What she needs is not the reward for the mission, but the sense of success and superiority that comes with completing the mission. In her subconscious, the game is considered completed only when she reaches the last level. Our current state gives her the feeling that we have just finished the prologue of the teaching mode.

In some ways, Sora is also a dangerous person.

If she regards commissioned tasks as a source of success, she will inevitably fall into adventure sooner or later.

When it comes to adventure, failure once can be fatal.